Swing state, political battleground, campaign focal point, election ground zero… call it what you will. As a Christian middle-class American, I call it Ohio, and Ohio is my home. With regards to the 2012 Presidential election, like
countless fellow Ohioans, I’ve grown weary of the seemingly endless parade of dinnertime (wakeup and bedtime) political phone calls. I’m tired of receiving campaign postcards in the mail (between Thursday and Saturday last week, we got EIGHT political post cards in the mail – I don’t want to be wasteful; I’m thinking of incorporating them into a quilt). And what if all that postcard mailing money were being spent on feeding and housing the homeless? Or providing quality health care to the uninsured? But I digress…).
I do care about the governmental consequences at stake; I note opinions and where the candidates stand on such controversial issues as abortion, the definition of legal marriage, and the state of the economy. However, the Holy Bible is the law by which I try to live my life. And there are no less than 17 Bible passages referring to false prophets. While educating myself about the Presidential candidates, I did a bit of research into the Mormon religion where I determined that Mormonism does not follow the same Bible I believe to be God’s word. Although my political and societal views are
usually Republican-esque, in this election, I have felt unrepresented by a candidate, which is why I’ve begun telling the Romney people who call me that they cannot count on my support for their candidate.

We can faithfully pray about the election and how our lives will be affected afterward, and we can also have peace knowing that our wonderful God is sovereign. I like the definition of God’s sovereignty I found on theopedia.com: The Sovereignty of God is the biblicalteaching that all things are under God’s rule and control, and that nothing happens without His directionor permission.
Have peace. Your vote counts, it matters to people, but also know that God is in the cockpit – no one is going to pilot this plane we call the United States unless our Lord lets him into the cockpit. Whether Americans will call Barrack Obama a 2-term President or if they get to know Mitt Romney as Commander-in-Chief, it happened because God allowed it to happen.
“The Lord has established his throne in heaven,
and his kingdom rules over all.” Psalm 103:19
As a popular saying goes: may the best man win. As far as I’m concerned, that man is Jesus.

November Election Day 2010 – it’s come and gone; everyone is ecstatic to be freed from being forced to absorb those scathing campaign ads. In the wake of Election Day, one Chicago ‘burb emerged with a history-making result. Buffalo Grove, Illinois citizens voted upon and passed a successful recall vote of a village trustee for the first time ever. You might have read my previous post about Lisa Stone, the tenacious (polite word) village trustee who helped make Buffalo Grove village council meetings look like too-good-to-be-real-for-reality-tv. She would do things like nit-pick, interrupt, refuse to take order; many times single-handedly being responsible for meetings lasting into the following morning! Lisa Stone and the Village President Elliott Hartstein would butt heads at every meeting until he was so frustrated he looked ready to burst. Well, the votes were counted, and Ms. Stone has to leave office. And if you think that Village President Hartstein was happy about this, check out this little video of him impersonating (complete with wig) the thorn, uh, Stone in his side:

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Yes, it was a horrible political decision, and a public apology was issued promptly. A guy’s gotta vent, but he should have known better. Just when we thought the reality show was canceled, a bonus episode appears. For the whole story, click here.

***It’s come to my attention that the video is no longer available – bummmer!! It was too funny! Well, there’s nothing I can do about that, so here’s the next best thing: pictures.

I check out the headlines on Chicago’s suburban newspaper’s website, The Daily Herald, partly because that’s where I’m from (so I know of the locations of the news stories) and partly because my own small town daily paper is kind of boring because we’re… well, crime-less. No news is good news, so they say, and I agree with that assessment for my little corner of the world. But far removed am I, and so reading about the disasters in the Chicago area can be quite entertaining; especially the recent stories concerning this woman, Lisa Stone, a trustee from a place called Buffalo Grove, which is an upscale suburb of Chicago.

There have been numerous news stories about Ms. Stone, and I didn’t really pay attention until I saw this headline:

If you want to envision grown-up politicians behaving like children, read the article, for it’s like a play-by-play of a school yard bickering session. If you would like to see the trustees in action, here is a link to video of the actual meeting. It goes a bit long (a whopping 3+ hours – these poor people were at their meeting until 10:30pm!), but most of the action involving Ms. Stone is in the first 10 minutes (after the Pledge of Allegiance) and in the last 30 minutes of part 3 of the meeting, which is where poor flustered President Hartstein has finally had enough.

Causing most of the problem is Ms. Lisa Stone because she doesn’t seem to respect the most basic rules of politeness nor eloquence. She interrupts the other board members; speaking out of turn, continuously overriding her superiors and her time limits (time limits which were created, voted upon, and passed by her fellow board members because of her actions at previous meetings), and she just doesn’t seem concerned about any agenda other than her own. After watching these little pieces of political treasure (ah, Illinois politics, gotta love ’em. Isn’t this a state poised to have TWO former governors in the pokey at the same time?), I couldn’t resist doing some internet research on Lisa Stone. The most interesting thing I found was her election website, electlisastone.com where the very same newspaper who provided a play-by-play of her getting told to ‘shut up’ by the board president endorses her political career with very encouraging words which are displayed prominently and proudly on the top middle of the page! Also of interest on this site? Check out the little video on the left side – the then-mayor of the same city, Buffalo Grove, also endorses Lisa in the election. And guess who the mayor was during the election? Elliott Hartstein, the same president of the village board who got so flustered with Ms. Stone that he told her to ‘shut up’. How about those politics, folks! More entertaining than a 3-ring circus and for free, from the comfort of your own living room!

I took the tv away from the kids today (not that they watch it that much anyway) so I can watch the events in Illinois unfold as their governor Rod Blagojevich is arrested on corruption charges. No surprise there, just an interesting story being followed by a former resident of that state. In fact, we left Illinois for good in 2003 just months after Blago assumed office, which was mostly a coincidence, but I would say that his being elected to the governor’s office did add to the feeling we had that the state was falling apart. It was that obvious from the beginning that Blago was no good. Over the years, I’ve been following news stories in Illinois by reading dailyherald.com, an online version of a suburban newspaper. Every time there was anything in the paper related to Blago, there was no shortage of comments from readers about the purported corruption of the governor. In October of this year, the governor’s approval rating was a measly 4%. And today, the you-know-what has hit the fan. The governor of Illinois is in prison – the second gov in a row from that state to serve time, as a matter of fact. As we speak, err, as you read this, former Illinois Governor George Ryan is probably watching the Blagojevich coverage from the federal prison he currently calls home. I’m just curious if it makes anyone nervous that our new President-elect is from a state that can’t seem to keep its leaders out of the slammer. Hopefully, Barack Obama can set a new standard for politicians from Illinois – that would be refreshing.

But in the meantime, watching Blago’s saga unfold is compelling – the reporters on CNN are saying that the breadth of the corruption is unimaginable. They’re saying Blago engaged in a ‘crime spree’ while in office and the details are troubling – including allegations of $8 million in funding being pulled from a children’s hospital because its CEO did not contribute $50,000 to Blago’s campaign. And I’m not writing this to pick on Blago or make any sort of political statement – it’s not that I’m the type of person who smiles at the misfortune of others either, but hey, he did this to himself. I just feel badly for the residents of Illinois who trusted this man to be their leader and their representative, and now they’re forced to watch with the rest of the world while he is exposed for what he truly is, giving their state a horrible reputation in the process. The main victims in this situation are the Blagojevich family, and it’s sad that Rod’s two young children will probably have to grow up now without a father in their lives. And unfortunately, Blagojevich is just the latest in a long line of corrupt officials from the Land of Lincoln. Since the early 1970’s, 3 former Illinois governors have served time in prison, not including Blagojevich who is a current governor. Here’s to hoping the politicians of Illinois can get their act together amidst their growing tradition of disreputableness.

Unlike previous posts of mine, this one is being written to compliment the status of gas prices these days. Here in NW Ohio, we ‘re paying $1.99 for gas – it was actually weird looking to see a 1 up there on the price board at the gas station.

But I’m really happy about it, of course, seeing how gas prices have been cut in half from only a short time ago. All of a sudden, it’s taking me twice as long to pump gas – but I am NOT complaining! Also, it’s now feasible to round up to the next dollar amount when topping off your car’s gas tank. Did you notice that when gas prices were so high, one squeeze of the gas pump cost, like 6 or 7 cents? If I wanted $15 worth of gas and I stopped the pump at $14.96 or above, there was no way to get it so I’d be paying the $15. One squeeze of the pump and my total was now $15.03 or above all of a sudden! So now, even though it takes me twice as long to pump gas, I appreciate being able to choose a dollar amount to spend and be able to stick to it. And when I was in Illinois last weekend, I asked my grandpa what he remembers the gas prices being when he owned his gas station way back when. I don’t know what year he was talking about, but he said he remembers gas being 19¢ per gallon!

What was the reason for the sky-rocketing gas prices, and how did the problem seemingly fix itself? Something to do with politics, I’m sure, but I don’t really care as long as they keep getting lower. Since I spent so many posts complaining about the gas prices when they were horrible, I thought I’d try to send out a little bit of good karma by noticing and sharing my appreciation for the low gas prices we have now – cross your fingers that they’ll stay!